What Ranching In The U.S. Is Really Like!

Good morning Angus, how are you buddy? Good morning. Damaris is working at the hospital today so Silas gets to go hang out with grandma. Good morning folks. So the water that we had flooded down into our basement we think that it just backed up the sump pump drain. We didn't have a sump pump put in yet. I didn't think we'd need one. So we've never had this much rain nine inches that's very very rare for us. But now I guess we know that we need to get a sump pump so we're going to get one put it in there and hopefully that will eliminate the problem. And if I did some dirt work and stuff that would help too with just the drainage and everything. And a couple of you have reached out and asked how you can support us which is super generous guys. The best way is just watching the videos, liking, commenting, subscribing. We really appreciate that. You can also get some merchandise. The link to the merchandise is in the description of the videos and on our channel bio. And something cool that we just started is Patreon. So it's just a place where you can just go financially support your favorite creators. So if you want to be a monthly sponsor on there five bucks a month, ten bucks a month, one dollar a month, or just a one-time gift we would really appreciate it. It helps out a lot. And the link to that Patreon is in the description of the videos as well as on our channel bio page too. But yeah or if you don't feel like doing any of those that's all right too. But let's get to the video. Check out this winter rye. Now this winter rye is pretty cool. We planted it last fall. This was our first year planting winter rye. We're really pleased with how it turned out. As you can see some of these shoots are up past my chest. I think we're gonna get some good tonnage off this. We're just gonna bale it all up, feed it for hay with our cows. We'll mix it in with some silage and stuff but it gets too mature. I guess the cows don't really like it and it can be have a little bit of toxicity to it. But we cut it now. It's in the perfect stage. It should be great feed for our Jock is trying to kick a little sickness so we left him behind to cut hay. But me and my dad are heading up. We've actually got two semi loads of our two-year-old cows. We're bringing them up to some of our private ground for the summer. That area where we were fixing fence with all the elk damage is the pasture that we're bringing them up to. So we're gonna go unload those, make sure they pair up, and just kind of get content. And then we'll probably go fix some fence. Just park along here? Yeah park here so it's a win. Okay. Get the chute unloaded. They like it in there too much. They don't know where they're going yet. Are you happy with how the two-year-olds and the calves look? Filling out with nice green grass. Yeah that helps a lot. Picking up. I'm sure they'll look better. Yeah they will. They always look gangly because they're just growing. The two-year-olds? Yeah. Yeah. It's hard to feed a calf and to grow. Exactly. Yeah. Trucks are all unloaded and heading out. Time for a little bit of lunch. Thank you honey for the sandwiches. Appreciate it. Chicken salad sandwiches. Always good. My dad and I came up to our Baskela permit. We're going to bring some cows up here in the next video. Just fixing some fence. Got to go around the whole permit. Every summer we fix about 120 miles of fence between the permits and our private ground. We're kind of maybe halfway done with fixing fence. We still have a lot to do. This whole permit and the Shine Crossing permit yet still have to be done. For those of you who are new to the channel or who haven't heard me talk about this before, we run our cows on four different forest service grazing permits in the summer. Not all our cows. We have another group on some, well two other groups on our private ground, but the majority of our cows are on forest service grazing permits. So this is land that is owned by the forest service, but technically if you're a U.S. citizen and you're a taxpayer, you own this land. So we're basically running our cows on your guys's land. There's a lot of controversy to that. They started doing grazing permits way back when, I think early 1900s, maybe late 1800s, just to graze down the grass as it was a big fire hazard for the mountainous areas. So these grazing permits have been in place for a long time, but we work really closely with the forest service to make sure nothing gets overgrazed or undergrazed. So these forest service permits range in size. Our smallest one's about 8,000 acres. Our biggest is probably 16,000 acres. And it all depends on the permit, how much grass there is, how much of it is big steep hills, how much wildlife is in that area. And that just dictates how many cows we can put. Permit here is about 15,000 acres. We can put 150 cows here for the summer. Another one is 16,000 acres. We can have 200 cows in there. So it all just depends on how much wildlife is around, how much grass is around, how wooded the areas are, how steep the hills are, basically just how much grass there is and how many cows can graze it without depleting the resources for the wildlife and stuff too. All of the permits are split into different pastures. So this permit has five different pastures in it. If you can remember last year, I brought my buddies up here and we dumped into this permit. Actually, this was the first pasture we came into. If you guys can remember that, I brought Owen and Jackson along. This year, we won't be turning in to this pasture. First, we're turning into another one, which we actually got the fence fixed up already and ready to go. But we still have to fix the fence and all the pastures because we'll be rotating them around going to all the pastures throughout the summer. Some clouds are building up. We might get rained on. So how you get these permits is you actually buy for the amount of cows that are on the permit. We pay a big fee when we buy the permit. One recently sold, I think it was 100 cow permit, it sold for like $4,000 per pair. So you don't pay for the land, you pay for the amount of cows that are on it. I know that's confusing. But basically, you buy the permit and you buy whoever had the cows on it, that number of cows with the permit. So when my dad bought his last permit, he had to buy, well, it was this permit, he had to buy 150 cows of the people who owned it. And then those cows were a pain in the butt, ended up selling them and just raising our own to eventually put on here. So we pay a big fee to get the permits. And then we also pay annual fees to lease the permits year to year. And then the permittee or us as the rancher, we do all of the fencing, we cut off all the trees off the fences, we take care of water. But the Forest Service does do a little bit of cost sharing for supplies such as wire and posts. And they also help just do some water projects to get new water tanks or solar tanks. These permits are all multiple use, which means logging companies are logging them with Forest Service contracts and permits. And if you ever come to the Black Hills, you ride your four wheelers or ATVs around on the trails. That's your Forest Service ground and it's through a lot of our permits. So make sure you shut those gates. But if you see cows out on some of those trails, they could very well be ours or be ranchers like us. So you guys should comment what you think of ranchers grazing public lands. Tell me your opinion. I like to hear both sides. I know it's kind of controversial. I think it's a really good thing. Otherwise, this whole meadow would all be weeds. There'd be not really any grass, probably be overgrown with trees. And the Forest Service would just be spraying a bunch of pesticides to get control of the weeds. And the wildlife population would probably be declining. So that's my take. That's what I think. But I'm a little biased. Starting to rain a little bit. Feels pretty good though. Not gonna lie. It's getting pretty warm. Might as well just hang out under a tree till it blows over. I don't know how hard it'll rain. Well, it's just gonna keep raining and it's about time I go home and see some bears and Nice rain to help the grass grow though. Silas, did you have a good day with grandma today? I think you did. She had fun too. Damaris doesn't get off work till about seven. So Bubs and I are gonna have a little boys night. Damaris works about a night a week. So just to keep her nursing license. And she likes to get out and see some people, you know, so. But yeah, thank you guys for coming along. Really appreciate it. Hope you're all doing well. We'll see you in the next one. Say goodbye, Bubby.